I had to chance to chat with the local Bostonians in Cardinals this past month. Cardinals is currently a two-piece pop-punk outfit fresh off their acoustic EP, Aftertaste, looking to make their mark on the scene. We chat about anything and everything Boston while talking about the success of Aftertaste and their plans for 2017.

Let us get to know a bit more about you. What was the last concert you went to (not local)?

Emily: Mine was the The Wonder Years. We saw it together at the House of Blues in Boston. It was sick as hell.

CJ: Mine was Circa Survive at the Western Hall in New York.

Those both sound like awesome shows. With both of you living in Boston, I want to have some fun throwing out some Boston-only style questions for you.Matt Damon or Ben Affleck?

Emily: Matt Damon

CJ: Matt Damon

Emily: I think Matt Damon, I don’t really know why.

CJ: Cause he’s Jason Bourne?

Emily: Maybe! I really liked his character in Good Will Hunting too.

Patriots or Celtics?

Emily: Celtics!

CJ: You know, I’m not actually from Boston. I’m from New Jersey. But, I’d still choose the Celtics because I’m more of a basketball than football fan.

I want to talk a bit about your Boston accent coming through in your work. Lots of European bands do their best to mimic American artists and have a typical American accent. Do you leave it in there intentionally to add a uniqueness to your voice or is it just hard to mask it?

Emily: It’s funny because I don’t really have a Boston accent when I talk.

I’ve noticed that so far (laughs).

Emily: I think it started when I didn’t want to pronounce my “r’s” so much when singing. It’s a very hard consonant to sing. Somehow I started overdoing it and I don’t know if it’s my inner-Boston coming to say “hi” or not, but it has turned into a habit.

What inspired you to write an acoustic EP?

CJ: I would say we didn’t have a choice. We didn’t want to be stagnant. We went on tour last summer with Dreamer & Son and we were a full band at that point. Our drummer was just a fill in, we parted ways with our guitarist over creative differences and our bassist had to move back to Canada. It boiled down to just us two. So we had to start playing shows acoustically. We wanted to keep going though because we had received such a positive response from acoustic shows. We figured, “Let’s give it a shot!”

Emily: I kind of always wanted to do something like that anyway.

CJ: You get to explore different areas with acoustics rather than with a full band.

Emily: It shows how well a song can hold up without all the production to it too. It’s interesting to see all the layers in the song and how it comes across so different than our full-band versions. I think it was the right time to do it if there ever was a time to do it.

Moving forward, do you think you’ll stick with your current lineup or want to add more members for a full band?

Emily: We want permanent members. As fun as this acoustic run has been for us, we ultimately want a full band.

CJ: We also write songs as if we are a full band. We are in the process of demoing songs for a full-length that we eventually want to get going too. We’re writing these songs as if we have the drums, bass, and two guitarists.

The production sounds great on Aftertaste. Who ended up producing that?

Emily: Funny you should mention that. It was actually all CJ.

CJ: Thank you. It was the first thing I ever put on iTunes. I spent months on the EP trying to nail it down and make a good impression. I’m glad someone thinks it’s good!

Absolutely. The vocals are strong, the lead guitars stick out and it has a very polished sound.

CJ: Thank you. That means a lot.

What do you have planned for 2017?

Emily: We are currently on an acoustic tour right now. We ideally would like to have a full band touring this summer too. We really want to go back to Canada because we had a killer time in Montreal. We also really want to record this full-length.

CJ: We’re about 12 songs into the writing process and we have to narrow it down from there. Once we have that figured out we still have to find someone to produce it.

You can catch Cardinals on the last leg of their Spring Broke Tour at the date below: